Archives for September 2015

There seem to be tons of books out there that claim to be “perfect” for the Product Manager and those wanting to move into a role in Product Management. There are also reading lists across the Internet — some better, some worse. I’ve found the following 18 books to be essential reading for anyone who is or wants to be a Product Manager; the list is in no way a complete list of all the great books, but a shortlist of those that I think are absolute must-reads.

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As companies transition from traditional, more waterfall-oriented approaches to their products, they often struggle with understanding how agile practices fundamentally change the ways in which they need to plan and develop their product roadmaps, both for internal use as well as for discussion with key customers and market prospects. The old-school method of assigning specific features on a quarterly basis just fails the smell test when you’re claiming to be agile — the whole concept behind being “agile” is that you’re accepting that you aren’t some Oracle of Delphi, and that you really can’t predict the future with any certainty.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t create a strategic plan that involves a product roadmap to put your investors, teams, and customers at ease. It just has to look different and to focus on the things that you can know, while allowing for the flexibility necessary to truly be agile and market/customer-driven.

As with any vocation, there are many “tricks of the trade” that on develops as a Product Manager over time. Most of these tricks are pretty basic, and seem entirely too obvious on reflection, but before you come to the realization that they’re important, they elude you. One of the common problems that we run into as Product Managers is that our day-to-day jobs are so results-oriented and interrupt-driven that we often fail to take that very important time to reflect on what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it.

The thing is, that kind of introspection and reflection really doesn’t take a whole lot of time or effort. In fact, it’s something that every Product Manager should do as a brief exercise either before they start their day, when/if they’re taking a break for lunch, or when you’re just about to pack everything up and head home at the end of the day (or even on your commute in to or away from work!). Call it meditation, call it preparation, call it whatever you’d like, but every PM worth their salt should be asking themselves these three questions every single day!

The question of what makes a good Product Manager seems to be a strongly recurring theme throughout the world of those who are interested in becoming Product Managers, those who already practice the craft, and even those who must work with us on a daily basis or have to hire on a Product Manager to fill a gap that they’ve identified in their organization. The reasons are varied, but one constant source of such questions is the simple fact that there is not one reliable, solid, generally-accepted definition of the role of a Product Manager. Rather, organizations play with the title and assign what seems like a random set of responsibilities to anyone willing to put the “Product Manager” hat on.

However, I’m a firm believer that there is a core set of skills, abilities, and talents that can make anyone a successful Product Manager, no matter what company they find themselves in and no matter what title the actual role has. Here are four of those attributes that any successful Product Manager needs to have…

The common wisdom in the Product Management world is that more transparency is always better — transparency into the planning process, the roadmap, the product strategy, prioritization, design, development, etc. And while transparency is certainly important, generally speaking, it can also have its dark side, especially when the culture in which you are being transparent doesn’t understand or respect the goals of transparency, and subverts your attempts to provide clarity and understanding in order to further their own agendas.

Rarely, however, is transparency itself to blame for these problems — rather, it’s transparency combined with other dysfunctional behavior, or transparency that’s not well thought-through or explained in a way that others understand why things are open and available. When these behaviors or cultures converge on a transparent process, the outcomes aren’t always pretty. Here are three examples of transparency that results in incongruous outcomes…